ABU DHABI // John van’t Schip, the Melbourne City coach, said the team’s experience in the UAE will have them in top condition for their return to Australia’s A-League after the Asian Cup.
Melbourne are on a 12-day camp in Abu Dhabi during the domestic league break for the Asian Cup in Australia until January 31 and went down 2-0 to Al Jazira on Sunday at the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium in their first friendly of the trip.
“Our camp so far has been fantastic. We had only two training sessions hopefully we can get some time to go around and see Abu Dhabi as a city,” the former Dutch international said.
Of losing their game to Jazira, he said: “It was a good game and for us it was a good experience to come down here for a camp and play the local league leaders.
“The result wasn’t what we wanted but, looking at the positives, we had a majority of our players playing the full 90 minutes.
Considering we have been here for only two days we found it a bit difficult with the jet lag.”
Melbourne are set to play a club side from Ukraine in the next friendly but the date has not been decided.
They are mid-table in the A-League at the half-way point of their season and Van’t Schip said he believes the camp will be useful and helpful for the team’s high level training.
He said it would have them well prepared for their match against the Western Sydney Wanderers on February 1 when they return to domestic action.
Patrick Kisnorbo, the Melbourne captain, who made more than 100 appearances for Leicester City in England, said the trip was giving the players a good chance to get focused for the restart of the A-League.
“There are a lot of things we need to do better after the game against Jazira,” he said. “Hopefully we can continue with our training.
“Our focus right now is to raise our level from this camp and be ready for a big game in the A-League that’s coming up. We are concentrating on what we have to do here as a club.”
Damien Duff, 35, who moved to the A-League after spells at Premier League clubs Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea, Newcastle United and Fulham, was looking forward to the training for the rest of the week.
“There is a lot of work in progress to improve our levels and hopefully we can get to where we want to be as quickly as possible,” said the Republic of Ireland international with 100 caps.
“Jazira were impressive. They had some pretty decent players but our task is to make use of this camp and be on readiness for the second half of the A-League.”
apassela@thenational.ae
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